Surface Pro 4

bman212121 said:
@DJS4000: #2 is an interesting proposition. In the Dell Venue Pro configuration, the base doubles the battery life. So I'd imagine it might only be 6 hours as a "Clipboard". But like the DVP, you would simply hook the screen back to the base to get the other 6 hours out of it. We all know you're not getting up to 12 hours if the Nvidia GPU is running. What could be more interesting is if you can tune how it uses battery charge. On the DVP I think it pulled from both equally, but I can't remember exactly. So you could use the device for part of the day as a laptop, take off the bottom half and throw that on the charger while you use the tablet. Then once the tablet is depleted you can just plug the base back in and use it as a laptop again for more time. So if you are using it heavily there are scenarios where you can get more than a single charge out of it by charging part of the device back up while you're using the other part. Also, in a situation where let's say you have multiple of them in the same area (We have done this in a work environment), you can steal someone else's base unit which is already charged and use that for extra battery.
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well, in some of the cutaways the whole base appeared to be mostly batteries next to the GPU, so i would expect a massive boost in runtime with it attached.

also, the part about swapping bases for continuous workflow is a good idea. the new generation ThinkPad uses a kind of similar system, where the laptop has a detachable battery and an internal small capacity "bridge" - battery. this allows you to change main batteries without powering down, which is neat. it also charges the internal battery first.

i'd imagine it to be similar with the surface book.
 
Iris Pro is only in the i7 configurations, which are not shipping for an extra month (November 20th). Would really like to see what the Nvidia GPU is. Also very interested in performance / battery life comparisons for the SP4 with CoreM vs Core i5.
 
Processors for the Surface Pro 4:
M3-6Y30, i5-6300U, i7-6650U

Core M:http://ark.intel.com/products/88198/Intel-Core-m3-6Y30-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-2_20-GHz
4.5W

Core I5: http://ark.intel.com/products/88190/Intel-Core-i5-6300U-Processor-3M-Cache-up-to-3_00-GHz
15W 2.4Ghz, turbo 3.0Ghz
Dualcore with hyperthreating

Core I7: http://ark.intel.com/products/91497/Intel-Core-i7-6650U-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_40-GHz
15W 2.2Ghz, turbo 3.4Ghz
Dualcore with hyperthreating

Just got confirmation that the book has the same processors.
 
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This is the most disappointing shit I have seen all day. Surface Pro 3.1.
 
tangoseal said:
Nope.

Need thunderbolt. USB C doesnt have accomidations for PCI-e lanes.
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Yes, you need a thunderbolt controller (such as Intel Alpine Ridge which interfaces with Skylake) and it will accomodate PCIe lanes over USB 3.1 c

However, since there is no accomodating port, there is no thunderbolt.
 
So the SP4 decent config runs almost $1600. I would say that's a lot, or it just me?
 
Megalith said:
This is the most disappointing shit I have seen all day. Surface Pro 3.1.
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You would seem to be in the minority. Strong refresh for the Surface Pro, new model. Phones looked pretty cool with Continuum. Not sure what you were expecting.
 
The Surface Book actually gets me angry. Why is everyone so excited about it? It's simply Microsoft's version of the Yoga, with a butt-ugly hinge and desperately designed to look like a MacBook. I actually think it's a betrayal of the Surface concept. No ports, no kickstand...what the fuck is this?
 
Megalith said:
The Surface Book actually gets me angry. Why is everyone so excited about it? It's simply Microsoft's version of the Yoga, with a butt-ugly hinge and desperately designed to look like a MacBook. I actually think it's a betrayal of the Surface concept. No ports, no kickstand...what the fuck is this?
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Surface are hybrid devices. I don't see the Surface Book being a betrayal of that since that's what it is. The screen is an incredible 13.5" 3000x2000 resolution weighing only 1.6 lbs. 7.7 mm thick. Sure the kickstand would be nice and as well as ports but that screen and weight and dimensions look amazing at this size.
 
SP4 looks like a good refresh, but I'm not thinking it's quite enough to get me to upgrade from a SP3. Will have to see the reviews though.
 
JS_ said:
SP4 looks like a good refresh, but I'm not thinking it's quite enough to get me to upgrade from a SP3. Will have to see the reviews though.
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In all honesty would you expect it to be? Neither tablets nor laptops have ever really been on a 1 year upgrade cycle. 2-years at the earliest for most people, and many go even longer.

This is a good solid upgrade to an already good device.
 
Erasmus354 said:
In all honesty would you expect it to be? Neither tablets nor laptops have ever really been on a 1 year upgrade cycle. 2-years at the earliest for most people, and many go even longer.

This is a good solid upgrade to an already good device.
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Incremental upgrade, with much of the "upgrade" coming to the accessories, the keyboard and pen are backwards compatible with the Surface Pro 3. Will definitely pick these up for my Surface Pro 3. I certainly wouldn't have gotten the SP4 having a SP3 unless I were to sell the SP3. I was in it for the bigger tablet, assuming there was one this go around. I'm hearing battery life in the tablet section is pretty low, around three hours. That said I don't really ever use a tablet that long except with note taking which will work fine with the base attached to this and that's really good battery life.

Will keep checking to see if there any deal breakers for me. It's just about everything I've wanted in a device like this, just with the tablet section had a kickstand.
 
Megalith said:
The Surface Book actually gets me angry. Why is everyone so excited about it? It's simply Microsoft's version of the Yoga, with a butt-ugly hinge and desperately designed to look like a MacBook. I actually think it's a betrayal of the Surface concept. No ports, no kickstand...what the fuck is this?
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It's not a Yoga variant. AFAICT, the hinge doesn fold over like a Yoga. I would actually prefer a yoga variant.

This a detachable keyboard, more like an Asus Transformer.
 
Snowdog said:
It's not a Yoga variant. AFAICT, the hinge doesn fold over like a Yoga. I would actually prefer a yoga variant.
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I think the Surface Book is a better design for something that will be used as a tablet. It can be used standalone as a tablet and when connected to the keyboard there's no keys at the bottom while holding it to get in the way. The Surface Book will be top heavy compare to a detachable convertible but if the weight is distributed correctly, half in the keyboard and half in the tablet section, it should work well in most people's laptops as a traditional laptop.
 
JS_ said:
SP4 looks like a good refresh, but I'm not thinking it's quite enough to get me to upgrade from a SP3. Will have to see the reviews though.
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I still have an SP2, and I don't really feel compelled to upgrade still - I mean, it does everything I need it to do.

However, the new Surface Book is very compelling, that's like the perfect portable device in my eyes. Only thing holding me back is the price really, but more I think about it it's worth it.
 
Megalith said:
This is the most disappointing shit I have seen all day. Surface Pro 3.1.
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IMO, it's a good successor to the SP3. The SP3 was the first Surface Pro that you could say was a premium product that hit the check box on most users list. They didn't have to reinvent the wheel on the SP4, they just had to tweak the SP3 and fix/update what needed to be fixed. Do I think they could have done better in some areas, sure, but the SP4 is going to refine ever that made the SP3 a great device. Just look at the MacBook Pro/Air series, haven't really had many changes since 2010 besides hardware upgrades overtime. Don't mess with a formula that appears to be working well.
 
heatlesssun said:
I think the Surface Book is a better design for something that will be used as a tablet. It can be used standalone as a tablet and when connected to the keyboard there's no keys at the bottom while holding it to get in the way. The Surface Book will be top heavy compare to a detachable convertible but if the weight is distributed correctly, half in the keyboard and half in the tablet section, it should work well in most people's laptops as a traditional laptop.
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As I have said before I have no use for a giant standalone tablet. For a standalone tablet I went with 8.4".

For a convertible I would much prefer just having something like a 14" Yoga, that could be used as a desk tablet in Tent/Stand mode and of course laptop mode:

lenovo-ideapad-yoga-11-modes-grid.jpg
 
Snowdog said:
As I have said before I have no use for a giant standalone tablet. For a standalone tablet I went with 8.4".
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The Surface Book should work in all of the modes this image shows. The only one I'm not certain about is tent mode. The device and physically be configured this way but I have no idea how the accelerometer would respond in this position. My guess would be that it should work. Even if the accelerometer doesn't automatically rotate the screen it could be done manually.
 
A bit of info on the SP4 not having thunderbolt or any kind of pci-e out (well, the SB 99% has, in the base-to-tablet connector, but yeah):

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn632176.aspx
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn632182.aspx

Relevant:
Although effective, pre-boot authentication is inconvenient to users. In addition, if a user forgets their PIN or loses their startup key, they’re denied access to their data until they can contact their organization’s support team to obtain a recovery key. Today, most new PCs running Windows 8.1 or Windows 8 provide sufficient protection against DMA attacks without requiring pre-boot authentication. For example, most modern PCs include USB port options (which are not vulnerable to DMA attacks) but do not include FireWire or Thunderbolt ports (which are vulnerable to DMA attacks).

In fact, to achieve a Windows 8 InstantGo (formerly Connected Standby) certification from Microsoft, new devices can’t include a DMA port, eliminating the need for pre-boot authentication to mitigate against a DMA port attack in most tablets and other Windows 8–certified devices. Although this certification is primarily just implemented only on tablets and a few 2-in-1 devices such as a the Surface Pro 3, starting in 2015, Microsoft expects to see more 2-in-1 devices and laptops certified for InstantGo. Adoption of Thunderbolt on non-InstantGo devices is likely to increase in 2015, so we advise customers to keep this in mind as they purchase new devices and configure BitLocker on them.
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In both cases, the idea is that DMA-capable ports (anything PCI-e) enable DMA attacks, which can be mitigated by using an IOMMU (present in any VT-d capable system AFAIK). Only thing is, Windows doesn't appear to support IOMMUs (look here, message 7), and I'm guessing that it's either because (maybe) driver devs tend to go around the DMA APIs (an IOMMU would cripple all drivers that don't take it into account, the DMA APIs cover this), or somehow the current IOMMUs are unsuitable for this purpose.

Found it here originally, maybe about a year ago (was wondering why the SP3 was missing it at the time).

The other problem is, this InstantGo certification thingy might be causing problems for just about any other windows tablet manufacturer that wants to put a thunderbolt or a TB-enabled Type-C port on their device (or expresscard/firewire/anything DMA-capable). I'm reeeeally curious what percentage of drivers nowadays bypass the DMA APIs, and respectively what kind of impact will a windows 10 upgrade that enables IOMMUs have... or perhaps the IOMMU support can be disabled by default, except for such devices..?

Either way, I'd really like this to be cleared up. Trying to stir up some conversation about this on reddit in the meantime, to give the issue some momentum...
 
heatlesssun said:
The Surface Book should work in all of the modes this image shows. The only one I'm not certain about is tent mode. The device and physically be configured this way but I have no idea how the accelerometer would respond in this position. My guess would be that it should work. Even if the accelerometer doesn't automatically rotate the screen it could be done manually.
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How? Looking at the hings, it looks like it only folds forward, not backward.
 
Snowdog said:
How? Looking at the hings, it looks like it only folds forward, not backward.
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The screen can be flipped around in the dock like this:

snip_20151006201341.png


So tent mode is physically possible. This was a must for me as I will be using it a lot in this "canvas mode". I had also considered tent mode as well since there's no kickstand on the tablet section and the battery life of the tablet section is reported to be pretty low, like around 3 hours. That's fine as long as I can use it for writing in the configuration for long periods of time.
 
Surface note is just far far far far far far too overpriced when you get in higher specs.
 
tangoseal said:
Surface note is just far far far far far far too overpriced when you get in higher specs.
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You can get better specs in conventional or cheaper designs. I don't think it would benefit Microsoft, its OEMs or consumers if Microsoft started to compete directly with it's OEMs in price in mainstream categories.
 
And once again Microsoft disappoints with the memory configurations. Either 4GB for a $1000 device or pay hundreds more to get 8GB...
 
The only thing that I'm bugged about is the memory config. It's beyond stupid that I can get 16GB in a SP4 for 1500 but it's 2700 in the Surface Book. Hopefully this is a mistake or they adjust this after a few months.
 
davewolfs said:
The only thing that I'm bugged about is the memory config. It's beyond stupid that I can get 16GB in a SP4 for 1500 but it's 2700 in the Surface Book. Hopefully this is a mistake or they adjust this after a few months.
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I read somewhere it was user upgrade-able??????
 
I find that unlikely since to maximize space efficiency you almost certainly want to with soldered memory and not SODIMMs.
 
I'm not upgrading my surface pro 3 because its an excellent device - I use it everyday for taking notes but I'm already preordered for the surface pen and type cover.
 
I hope they fixed the jitter when drawing slow lines that was in the 3's for the SP4 release. I also want to see the color accuracy reports of the screen though I'd be surprised if they're worse than the S3 & SP3 which are supposed to have good color accuracy. Even though I bought a refurb SP1 earlier this year for cheap the low end Intel M one might be a worthy upgrade. Gonna wait until some digital artists like Ray Frenden or someone else does a review.
 
polydiol said:
I'm not upgrading my surface pro 3 because its an excellent device - I use it everyday for taking notes but I'm already preordered for the surface pen and type cover.
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I'm definitely thinking about getting the new type cover. I'll have to try it at the store when it comes out. A better feeling keyboard would be great.
 
I'm still deciding whether I want to spend $2200 for a tablet and another $500 for the accessories that go with it.

Is the i7 version fanless?
 
jevans64 said:
I'm still deciding whether I want to spend $2200 for a tablet and another $500 for the accessories that go with it.

Is the i7 version fanless?
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2200??

THe one I want is I7 - 8GB - 256GB and its 1599. I guess you want the absolute maximum model.

Is the pen included? I know the keyboard is not.

For everyone else, do you think that retailers are going to have them for a little less in price than the full MSRP that Microsoft is charging? I.e. Bestbuy might sell them for 100 or so less?
 
jevans64 said:
I'm still deciding whether I want to spend $2200 for a tablet and another $500 for the accessories that go with it.

Is the i7 version fanless?
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You want i7, 16GB ram, 512GB storage? I think the I7 8GB 256GB is the most sensible, it's even more sensible to switch to the i5 and save 200$.

tangoseal said:
2200??

THe one I want is I7 - 8GB - 256GB and its 1599. I guess you want the absolute maximum model.

Is the pen included? I know the keyboard is not.

For everyone else, do you think that retailers are going to have them for a little less in price than the full MSRP that Microsoft is charging? I.e. Bestbuy might sell them for 100 or so less?
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What I don't get is the 200$ for the i7 upgrade, MSRP between the i5 and i7 is only 110$.
Upgrade from 8GB to 16GB ram is also 200$, which cost around 60$ if it's DDR4 and 45$ if DDR3.
Also upgrading from 256GB to 512GB on the i5 is 300$, but on the i7 it's 400$. (if both with 16GB ram)
A 256GB SSD is under 100$.

The Book is even more stupid:
Upgrade the i5 8GB model from 128GB to 256GB costs a massive 200$! Actual cost is like 50$.
Going from 8GB 256GB to 16GB 512GB is a jaw dropping 600$!
The GPU upgrade for 200$ seems about right compared to other OEM's.


This just shows me that microsoft just does this to make OEM devices a lot more appealing. They go Apple style on the pricing and only have a few options that make sense:

For general usage, browsing, taking notes, office,...
i5, 4GB ram, 128GB SSD for 999$ Makes a lot of sense and is more than enough for most people.

For people that need a little bit more, do more multitasking, do some programming, photo editing,..
i5, 8GB ram, 256GB SSD for 1299$ imo, this is what most guys here will actually go for.

For the real poweruser that need a small package
i7, 16GB ram, 256GB SSD for 1799$, it's quite expensive for the fairly small upgrade you are getting. I would recommend to just skip this and look at the Book instead of this.

The Book has 1 very sensible option:
i5 8GB ram 256GB dGPU for 1899
Or the basic 1499 model if you can live with 128GB of storage.
 
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